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Can Minimum Wages Raise Workers’ Incomes in the Long Run?

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  • GEORGE ECONOMIDES
  • THOMAS MOUTOS

Abstract

Using an intertemporal model of saving and capital accumulation with two types of agents (workers and capitalists) we demonstrate that it is impossible for any binding minimum wage to increase the after-tax incomes of workers if the production function is Cobb-Douglas with constant returns to scale, or if there are no differences in ability among workers. We also show that it is not possible to increase the incomes of employed workers through minimum wage legislation, even under decreasing returns to scale and heterogeneity of ability among workers, unless the welfare support provided to unemployed workers is far below what they would earn in the absence of minimum wages. Moreover, we establish that in the absence of a separate class of agents (i.e. capitalists) minimum wages cannot increase the incomes of employed workers even when there are decreasing returns to scale and no welfare support is provided to the unemployed.
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Suggested Citation

  • George Economides & Thomas Moutos, 2016. "Can Minimum Wages Raise Workers’ Incomes in the Long Run?," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 18(6), pages 961-978, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jpbect:v:18:y:2016:i:6:p:961-978
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/jpet.2016.18.issue-6
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    1. Adam, Antonis & Moutos, Thomas, 2011. "A politico-economic analysis of minimum wages and wage subsidies," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 110(3), pages 171-173, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Vasilev, Aleksandar & Manolova, Hristina, 2019. "Wage Dynamics and Bulgaria: Co-movement and Causality," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 17(1), pages 91-127.
    2. Cristian Valeriu Paun & Radu Nechita & Alexandru Patruti & Mihai Vladimir Topan, 2021. "The Impact of the Minimum Wage on Employment: An EU Panel Data Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-17, August.
    3. Economides, George & Moutos, Thomas, 2017. "Minimum wages in the presence of in-kind redistribution," CEPIE Working Papers 08/17, Technische Universität Dresden, Center of Public and International Economics (CEPIE).
    4. George Economides & Pantelis Kammas & Thomas Moutos, 2020. "On the Interaction between Minimum Wage Adoption and Fiscal Redistribution: A Theoretical and Empirical Investigation," CESifo Working Paper Series 8355, CESifo.
    5. Robertas Zubrickas, 2020. "Contingent wage subsidy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(4), pages 1105-1119, August.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E64 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Incomes Policy; Price Policy
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • J23 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Demand

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